Thursday, January 11, 2007

Blood Oranges and Fatness

I'm not an everyday talk radio listener, but I found this and I wanted to share it with all of you.

Click on the link and try to get through the talks about blood oranges, (which are delicious), and LA's best restaurant (which I looked at the menu and it doesn't look so good...but that's me). Once you get past all of this you will first listen to a doctor describe what Gastric Bypass is and then to what I thought was one of the best descriptions of being fat.

The woman, who had gastric bypass, tells her struggle with her weight and what her relationship with food was like while at her biggest. Maybe I'm the only one who feels exactly like her, or maybe not, but I wanted to share it with all of you because I've never actually heard anyone, besides on this blog, say exactly how I feel...even though she's all skinny now.

I managed to make it through it to listen to it -- she has the cutest valley girl accent.

Interesting how she says it's difficult to adjust to how society treats you different thing.

Also:

Q: Do you ever miss your old body?A: [immediate answer]: No. Not at all.

Funny how the interviewer was like "But skinny isn't everything right?" and the girl immediately shut her down with, "No. When you're fat, skinny is everything." It was like the interviewer wanted her to admit the surgery wasn't worth it, and the girl was like "Hell no, bitch."

What i don't get about this blog is -- if that girl's interview spoke to you, why haven't you girls gotten gastric bypass?

is it that you are concerned about the risks and hope to someday get willpower to do a big diet/exercise program and lose it naturally?

I just find it bizarre that you are allowing yourself to be miserable like this, when you have the money to fix it. If not gastric (risks are definitely a consideration), then why not borrow $10,000 from your family and take time off from work and go to "fat farm," hire a trainer, get Zone diet delivery? I mean, fuck it-- life is too short to worry about the money, and I bet your families would love to spend it if it meant making their girls happier.

I really think that if you feel like the girl in that clip felt about her body, you are deliberately choosing to punish yourself by not taking action. Again, you aren't midwestern housewives with 2.5 kids who need to get up at 5am and do Walk Away the Pounds before Hunter and Paige wake up. you're not baking snickerdoodles for the school fair and driving around in a minivan and hoping to meet the mortgage payments this month. THOSE women are challenged by weight loss.

You are rich-ish chicks in your twenties. Stop wasting time.

At least get professional help and figure out why you can't love yourselves enough to take action to make yourselves happier. It's like you both are cutters or anorexics, except you punish yourselves by staying in the limbo of fatness. STOP. And also, that time one of you posted that the other got mad when she found out she was fatter than the other -- that's not friendship. That's sick.

A therapist would have a field day with the fact that your readers can't distinguish between the two of you from your posts. It's like, "get an identity" You are like a platonic Sid and Nancy, enabling each other. Except the drug isn't smack, it's take-out Thai and self-loathing.

I think these two bloggers are some of the most honest girls out there. When people decide to lose weight, whether they do it with diet and exercise or gastric bypass, diet, and exercise, it has to be a moment that clicks with them. Just because they talk about all the things they might wish would happen, and they have not done anything about it, what is it to you? That is what amazes me about this blog--not all of us fatties who haven't done anything about it--more, it is all the people who (I assume) are skinny and feel compelled to talk trash and tell us to hurry up. If it is so offensive to you, STOP READING THIS BLOG. Seriously.Did you not notice that the girl who had the surgery said that for the rest of her life she would still be on a diet? There are also no longitudinal studies about how people age with the surgery, so it is not surprising to me that a lot of people do NOT opt for the surgery.

To Fatty McGee--

I agree, that she really hit it on the head that the combination of numbness and armor are part of the eating/fatness experience.I also agree that society treats thin people differently than it treats fat people--but I am guilty of that, too.

I wonder if the girl who had the surgery, who sounded angry when she spoke about the disparate treatment of thins and fatties, I wonder how she treats fat people? I wonder if she is like all the seemingly impatient thin people who troll this board?

What is cool to me is, in real life, if we rehashed and talked about all these things we would like to do, and all these feelings we have about being fat and wishing we were thin, chances are, the people in our real lives would be just as impatient and judgmental as the people who comment on these boards. That is what is nice about the Internet. :)

I am posting here for the first time, and have been following this blog only for about a month now...

I'm also overweight and have been since my birth. I don't want to talk about all the diets and methods I have tried to lose weight and how they all pile back on some time after... I felt the urge to say something regarding a point shaynapunam made in his/her posting..

shaynapunam said "I wonder if the girl who had the surgery, who sounded angry when she spoke about the disparate treatment of thins and fatties, I wonder how she treats fat people? I wonder if she is like all the seemingly impatient thin people who troll this board?"

It just hit me when I read it... Because I just remembered all the times that when I saw an overweight person in the street (in Turkey), they would just look at me and size me up to check out if I was fatter than them. It was real frustrating and still is actually. However, I recently noticed myself checking them check me out. If I felt that they were checking me out to see if I was fatter than they are (which would comfort them: the "Oh my god, there's somebody fatter than me!" feeling), I too would check them out in the same way, but I don't know why, I wouldn't feel the comfort they did... Probably because my weight is the only thing that I am concerned with, not anyone elses.

I say that I know they feel comfort in knowing that there are people bigger than they themselvs are, because unlike other parts of the world, people in Turkey are so so soooo comfortable in blurting out to someone that they don't even know "oh my, you are so fat", that they do not give a damn how it makes them feel (even if they are overweight themselves.. as long as the other person is bigger).

So, yes, I also do wonder if people who were once overweight who lose the weight have antipathy for other fatties like us?..

Anon 6:40...I think a lot of former-fatties do have that antipathy. In some cases it's a matter if "if I can do it, why can't you? I must be better than you are in some measure". In others, they hated themselves when they were fat....seeing us reminds them of that time in their lives, therefore that dislike passes on to us (I think the psychological term for it is "transferance").

I used to be thin and always had bit of a superior attitude to those heavier than me. I hope that experiencing life as a fat person will allow me to be more open-minded and kind if (when!!!) I get back down to a healthy weight!

I'm the "hurry up and DO something" poster, and I too am anonymous and on the internet -- and I wouldn't call my post "talking trash." I'd call it "being honest." I don't think there was anything nasty in my tone, and I apologize if it came off that way.

It truly isn't my problem if the mcgees stay fat or get thin. But I listened to that girl on the radio and she HATED being fat. And the mcgees said she expressed "exactly how [they] feel." Basically, the gist of her interview was -- surgery sucked, I had bad gas, I can't eat normally, but it sucks a lot less than being fat."

My thought is pretty simple -- the McGees aren't desperate to make ends meet, I gather from reading their posts. They could try throwing a little money at the problem.

I don't buy all this "you gotta have a moment where it all clicks for you before you can lose weight" mumbo jumbo. I too am in my twenties with a weight problem -- but with a good enough job that I can throw money at my weight issue. So i hired a trainer for 3 sessions a week in Sept and since then have lost 15 lbs and gotten a lot smaller. Nothing really "clicked" for me-- I just decided to try it out.

Another thing-- the girl on the radio had a problem with overeating. And the McGees have expressed a similar propensity to binging (dipping sauces, binge trays, etc.). I think a month at a fat farm, or Zone delivery, or therapy, or a really kind and helpful female personal trainer, or, yes, maybe even the lap band, are all worth considering.

And I resent all the people who read the McGees and yet, get angry if anyone attempts to give them blunt advice. Are all my fellow readers sociopaths? Do you want the McGees to stay fat forever, miss out on their youth, miss out on the cute Jeremy Piven doctor lookalike they dream about and simply produce fun posts about binges and pannuses forever for you? Well, then, you're a bunch of assholes.

There's something to be said for, at the least, getting "aware" of your weight even if you aren't ready to lose it.

Like, everyone who considers themselves "fat" should have a scale and get on it several times a week. Just to keep an eye on what the number is, and prevent gains that occur out of ignorance. Weight watchers says never to weigh more often than once a week, but I think that is a WW plot to get you centered around the "official" once-a-week weigh in.

Not all advice has to be blunt, 10.36. And there's more than one way to deal with wretched self-hatred.

I'd encourage the McGees to stop flagellating their fat selves and try to cultivate some self-love. If money's no object, have a make-over; replace all the things that don't fit and that you hate wearing with clothes in colours that flatter, made from good quality fabrics that feel sensual, regardless of what size is printed on the label; it's only a bloody number. It's how you look and feel that matters and by constantly putting yourself down, you're stopping yourselves from blooming. Read my lips: you don't have to be thin to shine.

Read some books or blogs by people who've learned to cut their fat selves some slack; stop making role models out of talentless, fame-hungry, self-hating nobodies who'd do anything to get on TV, including lose massive amounts of weight in an unhealthy amount of time in unrealistic conditions most people don't have the time or inclination to replicate; instead search out fat beauties, fat wits and fat achievers for inspiration, and strive to become one yourself.

Give yourself permission to eat whatever you want, whenever you want to eat it, instead of eating like the Fat Police are going to barge into your house with stun guns and confiscate all your favourite foods at any moment. Instead, try asking yourselves what you really want to eat at any given time - if no food is "sinful" or verbotten, you'll find you get really bored with eating (insert favourite indulgent foodstuff of choice), around the clock. After all, there's always tomorrow to eat some if you simply don't fancy it now. Recently I was asked to list my very favourite foods and was surprised to discover, on reading it back, that only one of them could be defined as "fattening". If someone had asked me during my dieting days, that list would have been very, very different. If you truly love food, get into cooking, experiment; think in terms of actively seeking out healthy food rather than denying yourselves less healthy foods - mix them up, ring the changes! You'll feel healthier, you'll be healthier, regardless of what you weigh - and my guess, again, is that you will weigh less. Ditch the scales. Ditch the guilt.

If exercise is a chore, forget the gym. Try something that puts you in touch with your lush curves and works them at the same time - like belly dancing. Get on a fat-positive blog and find people in your area to go dancing with - or any other form of exercise you feel you might not absolutely hate. It may suit some of the fat-baiting idiots who post on this blog to believe that fat people don't move their bodies but I can assure you that isn't the case. It doesn't matter if you don't do it 5 times a week. If you do it once a fortnight and you have a damn good laugh, it's still going to be good for you.

My advice to the McGees is that they don't have to miss out on anything if they don't want to. Plenty of women who post here have landed themselves good, loving partners. It's all about attitude of mind. The only time they're wasting, in my view, is the time they spend hating themselves.

"The only time they're wasting, in my view, is the time they spend hating themselves."

That is very true, Buffpuff. We are pretty much in agreement -- the mcGees [and I fully admit I don't *know* them any more than you can know someone via their blog posts] need to stop self-hating and start taking action to make themselves happier.

Whether it's buying nice clothes and taking up fat positive activities, or hiring a trainer and dietitian, or even doing both, this limbo of self-loathing is one that has to end for the sake of their happiness.

Exercise doesn't have to be a chore. I fluttered like a heavy butterfly from one activity to the other until I found what I really wanted to do as a physical activity. Believe it or not, I even finished what is maybe the slowest marathon time in the world (42.195km in 7.5 hours) and then realized running was not for me.

I also tried dancing, aikido, kickboxing. Now I've stuck to Tae Kwon Do for three years and I just love it.

What do you love to do? Is it dancing with your friends? Checking out nature by walking/hiking in the mountains? Swimming the pacific ocean?

The world is full of beautiful, life-affirming things to do where you can use your body to express and to appreciate! Feel the wind on your skin on top of a hill you've climbed. Smell the flowers on the path. Drink in with your eyes the color of the landscape.

Goblin Market - so close! But the third line of your verse doesn't fit. Maybe drop the word "scheme" and come up with a different final line. Revise it so its rhythm fits the other lines and you've got a cool poem.

I think both buffpuff and the go-do-something Anonymous are right. Do something. Now. Either spend some time and money to lose the weight, or learn to love yourself as you are. You're both young and are wasting your lives with this constant self-hatred and miserableness.

There are an awful lot of posts about TV on this blog, but watching TV is not living. Get up right now and turn the TV off. Leave it off for an entire week. Use that time to go for a walk, call a friend, go out to dinner. Buy a book on fat self-love as buffpuff suggests, or check out personal trainers. Either choice is fine, but make the choice. If you can't choose, get a therapist to talk to to find out why.

Being fat isn't the real problem, refusing to do something about it by either losing it or loving it IS.

Yeah, I mean, it can't be healthy to spend THIS much time thinking about one's loathing of one's own fat, and yet, doing absolutely nothing to resolve the problem in any way, shape or form (ie, deciding to stop hating the fat, or start getting rid of it).

Yeah Heather! I dance in my room too! I pump up the volume and shake my big booty all over.

It's crazy when you dance when no one is looking. You can really let go. Plus you can do it almost-naked (sorry for the mental picture I gave you) so that you don't get too sweaty.

There's this quote I remember... Something like "Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like no one is watching."

Well at least I can do the third! Everyone can do the third! Come on boys and girls, get up off the couch , switch off the TV or change the channel to MTV and let go! YEAH!

I vote we do something like "Dance crazy in your room day." Where we all simultaneously dance alone at home. So while you're rocking, you need only think of all those people shaking their booties with you. And jiggling their arms. And bouncing their bellies. Bounce bounce bounce bounce.

Cool! What do you all think of that? Do we need to all dance to the same music?

Sorry for the multiple posts, but i just at to comment on something a previous poster said.

ANON 10:36.....

What a great point about the whole idea of just doing SOMETHING.

So many people come here and preach about "getting off the couch and moving your fat ass around to lose weight" that it gets very old. I for one, tend to tune it out and sometimes it even motivates me in the opposite direction.

I never even looked at it from the point of view that you need get off the couch, whether or not the plan is to lose weight, in order to experience LIFE!

You have given me an AH-HAH moment, which is prety damn amazing seeing as how I am functioning on about 5 hrs of sleep after through the entire weekend.

Yes! You know, the problem isn't being fat, the problem is hating being fat. Hating it so much that you refuse to start your life.

Watching television is not living. Dreaming about the day you are thin and magically find that Jewish doctor is not living either. Both are fine in small doses, but you're way overburdened with these non-activities right now.

Let me remind you that if you choose to seriously work at losing weight, even losing that weight will need to be done with a fat body. It's not like there's a thin body inside waiting to jump out, that's a great image but false. It's a fat body that makes the determination to become smaller and works at it. Or, it's a fat body that says "Ok, I'm fat. I'm going to try to accept it."

Either way, you're fat, you've got a fat bod. So what? It's not like you eat babies or anything. There's an awful lot of wonderful living that can be done in a fat body, and that's the only body you have right now. Yes it's a harder life but stop feeling sorry for yourselves and just get on with it. Accept it or change it, but do something!

Heather: If we all do a "dance in your room " day and are jumping up and down, won't that sift the earth off of its axis?!?!

Heather, we shall look at them with kindness in our eyes and say very slowly, "Sweetie, you do know that's a geographical impossibility, don't you? Can you say ge-o-gra-phi-cal im-poss-i-bi-li-ty? Good boy! Now run along and leave us adults to our conversation."

Anyway, I call for a "Dance like no one is watching" night, once a week!

Yeah, trolls, leave this site! If you hate fatties so much why don't you go to blogs that agree with your ideas, like http://www.gotogabby.com/gabby/blogs.php ? You can go and say "Oooh Gabby! We eat five servings of fresh fruits and veggies each day!" or "Hey, I run for 20 minutes three times a week!" I'm sure she'll all give you a nice pat on the head!

Heed her advice, trolls. "Don't Look Where You Don't Want to Go." If you don't want to be so fat, stop coming here!

All of the folks on this site with their weight loss "advice" - thank you very much. I think every person on this site is fully aware that in order to lose weight you must exercise and eat right. I understand you think you are a genius for preaching to us "fatties" about it - but this is a fact known by fat and thin people that you did not create out of your so-called brilliant minds. If you had any intelligence whatsoever, and were able to think for yourself, you would realize that no one on this website is confused about how to lose weight or seeking your advice. We are here to chat about our feelings with respect to being overweight - and if you are not overweight then actually, no one is talking to you. You are just proving our point- that weight isn't everything- even thin you are rude and obnoxious, and might I add that your barging in and insulting people on a website where you are not wanted is what i would call disgusting. Why don't you get your skinny ass out from behind the computer and find something better to do stupid.

anon@12:34We are actually here to read two people's blog. That they happen to be fat means that a good deal of their posts have to do with fatness, I am here because they are entertaining and funny. Not because they are fat. Just because you are here to talk about your feelings and I am here to read and sometimes, but not often, comment about what had been said, does not give you any more right to be here than me.

I also have to ask you this, if nobody is confused about weight loss, why do some people complain about being fat? Why not just change it? Because most people ARE confused about weight loss, they just don't realise it. We are force-fed so many diets of the week, and new exercise programs that it is very difficult to wade through all the crap and find something that can actually work long term.

That's enough about that.

The thing is, this isn't a fat acceptance site. It is a blog, plain and simple.

Hi, Fatty McBloggers,I enjoy reading your blog, and much of what you write has been me in past years.

Just wondering... have you ever considered you might be sugar sensitive? I am obese as well, and figuring this out has been my eureka moment since NOTHING worked for me. I'm doing the Radiant Recovery program and will not diet or non-diet again...

I agree with the posters up above who were saying that you're great bloggers - funny and insightful - but full of miserableness about your lives. It's easy for the rest of us to read and think about how funny this is and to laugh, but it's YOUR lives. Please don't let this be your whole life, please try one of the suggestions above. Either seriously go to lose weight, or seriously work at loving yourself as you are. But please don't continue to hate yourselves as you do today. You're too awesome to stay stuck in this rut.

True, the McGees didn't specifically request advice. But only a few posts ago they were asking their readers to petition the producers of The Biggest Loser on their behalf, so don't you think the advice-giving may be valid?

I am of the opininion that Lindsey and Emily like the trolls......it gets their numbers up (example, from Sept. 2006 "We love when that happens because we like watching the numbers on our site meter go up!") (example 2: july 2006, in response to the TMax debacle..."you guys have upped our daily readership by 300 people an hour, and I am a site meter whore, so it was fun having you.").

On a day where the thread is not invaded by trolls, the number of posts kind of peters out after a day or 2. When a troll jumps in to say something negative, all of a sudden that number will double or triple b/c of the back-n-forth mudslinging.

I am growing more and more suspicious that some of the comments (whether it be by a troll or a troll feeder) are actually written by Emily or Lindsey is order to keep their meter running.

Anonymous 7:46, you do have a point. However, what do they gain by getting more and more people to read their blog? They don't have advertisements on here, so it's not as though they're gaining revenue from troll-feeding.

I think there's something good to be said about health calculators and learning how many calories you should be taking in a day tailored to your weight, height, age, etc. I found a great one at healthybalance.com I find data of this sort helps.

Anon 7:46, this is after all the internet. do we even know if lindsey and emily are really fat? i'm sure some posters here are thin and pretend to be fat. perhaps some haters here are really morbidly obese and get their rocks off trashing other fatties. who knows, it's the internet! and come on, you know you all love the entertainment! :-)

I myself do not know why I keep coming back here. The comments are just so funny. And I find a certain freakish real-ness and sadness to the posts, even the seemingly happy ones.

maybe emily and lindsey are really frat boys. or maybe they're the next lonelygirl15. or maybe there are really only five posters here: you, me, emily, lindsey and buffpuff.

EMILY! LINDSEY! WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? I NEED MY NEXT FIX OF THE FAT LIFE! (ooh, do you think that'd be a good tv show? like sending two morbidly obese people to live on a farm and then hijinks ensue!)

oh and... if anyone is interested, I found this site, Active at Any Size: http://win.niddk.nih.gov/publications/active.htm. it's not meant to make you thinner (heavens no, you love your bodies the way they are) but at least it'll get you moving.

So, fat kat 5.50, it's not OK to make comments based on personal experiences (unasked advice) but it is OK to give unasked compliments (these fabulous women!)? Is that the lure of blogging: to get flattery from people you've never met?